Yeyi (autoethnonym Shiyɛyi) is an endangeredBantu language spoken by many of the approximately 50,000 Yeyi people along the Okavango River in Namibia and Botswana. Yeyi, influenced by Juu languages, is one of several Bantu languages along the Okavango with clicks. Indeed, it has the largest known inventory of clicks of any Bantu language, with dental, alveolar, palatal, and lateral articulations. Though most of its older speakers prefer Yeyi in normal conversation, it is being gradually phased out in Botswana by a popular move towards Tswana, with Yeyi only being learned by children in a few villages. Yeyi speakers in the Caprivi Strip of north-eastern Namibia, however, retain Yeyi in villages (including Linyanti), but may also speak the regional lingua franca, Lozi.

The main dialect is called Shirwanga. A slight majority of Botswana Yeyi are monolingual in the national language, Tswana, and most of the rest are bilingual.

Yeyi may have up to four click types, dentalǀ, alveolarǃ, palatalǂ, and lateralǁ. However, the actual number of clicks is disputed, as researchers disagree on how many series of manner and phonation the language contrasts.

Sommer & Voßen (1992) listed the following manners, shown as the palatal series:

Click

Description

ǂʰ

aspirated

ǂ

tenuis

ᶢǂ

voiced

ᵑǂ

nasal

ŋᶢǂ

prenasalized

ǂʔ

glottalized

ŋǂʔ

nasal 'ejective'

ǂχ

uvular fricative

ǂqʼ

uvular ejective

The uvular ejective series was uncertain due to infrequency.

Fulop et al. (2002) studied the clicks of a limited vocabulary sample with 13 Yeyi speakers. The series they found are:

Click

Description

ǂʰ

aspirated

ǂ

tenuis

ᶢǂ

voiced

ᵑǂ

nasal

ǂʔ

glottalized

ǂqʼ

uvular ejective

There are in addition prenasalized clicks such as /ŋᶢǂ/ and /ŋǂʼ/, but Fulop et al. analyze these as consonant clusters, not single sounds. In addition, a reported uvular affricated click appears to actually be velar, with the affrication a variant of aspiration, and so has been included under ǂʰ. There is similar velar affrication with the dental ejective click among some speakers. The ejective clicks are apparently uvular.[5]

Miller (2011), in a comparative study with other languages, interprets their results as follows,[6]

Click

Description

ǂʰ

aspirated

ǂ

tenuis

ᶢǂ

voiced

ᵑǂ

nasal

ǂʔ

glottalized

ᵑ̊ǂʔ

glottalized nasal

ǂ͡qχ

lingual–pulmonic

ǂ͡qχʼ

lingual–glottalic

The contrast between glottalized and glottalized nasal clicks is unusual, but also occurs in Gǀwi.

Unfortunately, the speakers interviewed were not from the core Yeyi-speaking area, and they often disagreed on which clicks to use. Although the six dental clicks (ǀetc.) were nearly universal, only one of the lateral clicks was (the voiced click ᶢǁ). The alveolar clicks (ǃetc.) were universal apart from the ejective, which was only attested from one speaker, but two of the palatal clicks were only used by half the speakers, at least in the sample vocabulary. The missing palatal and lateral clicks were substituted with alveolar or sometimes dental clicks (palatals only), and the missing ejective alveolar was substituted with a glottalized alveolar. Both of these patterns are consistent with studies of click loss, though it is possible that these speakers maintain these clicks in other words. 23 of the 24 possible permutations were attested in the sample vocabulary by at least one speaker, the exception being the ejective lateral click *ǁʼ. This research needs to be repeated in an area where the language is still vibrant.

Seidel (2008) says that Yeyi has three click types, dental ǀ, alveolar ǃ, and, in two words only, lateral ǁ. There are three basic series, tenuis, aspirated, and voiced, any of which may be prenasalized: